Balance and Impact...

One of my favorite Bible verses that I learned long ago is Luke 2:52. It goes something like this: "and Jesus grew in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and man." This speaks to His development mentally, physically, spiritually, and socially. It takes quite an effort to balance all of these disciplines in my life. It's a life long pursuit and and requires constant effort to improve. It's definitely a journey and not a destination. At 47 years old, I am frustrated that I have not made more progress in all of these areas of my life. But I never quit trying. So when you see or hear me say or do something negative, just remember that I'm still working on it.

There are a couple of other elements to include such as financial and emotional. I'll leave the financial out of this blog, but add the emotional. If you have experienced love, hate, joy, sorrow, exhileration, saddness, frustration, anxiety then you have experienced emotions, whether you are male or female.

Anyway, during the course of my triathlon training, I have learned that all 5 of these aspects come into play. Training helps me experience all 5 and work toward balancing them as well. Let's take a look at these one at a time:

1) Physical: this is the easiest one to see. If you are training for any sport, whether to win or just to compete, you have to train your muscles for that sport, whether football, basketball, baseball, marathon, triathlon, or whatever. This is self evident. After two years of struggling on my own, I hired a coach with much more success and experience in triathlon than I will ever have. In a few short months, I feel like I am in the best shape of my life, with more to come! I would be further along too, if only I had done all the workouts she gave me. I am constantly trying to manage my time so I can complete them all. Plus, she has managed the volume and intensity of my training better than I ever did. Accountability is a great thing!

2) Mental: Regarding triathlon, it is more mental than I ever imagined! I have to "unlearn" what I logically thought was best in order to "learn" what is the best way to go further and faster in the swim, bike, or run. You must also add strength training, flexibility, and nutrition. You can train with the best in the world, by the best coaches in the world, but if you don't fuel properly, all your training is one big waste of time. This shows up more dramatically in long course events such as the half Ironman or full Ironman events. I have bonked badly during my 3 HIM's, so bad I thought I was going to die! (At one point, I actually would have preferred it.) Since I got tired of my "trial and error" approach, I hired someone that knew more about nutrition than I did so I could learn (mental) from their wisdom and experience. Triathlon is such an individual sport that we all have unique individual needs. So I am constantly trying to learn more about the sport and how it pertains to my needs. I will ask anybody anything and listen to what anybody says, even if I don't use all of it. My needs are probably different from your needs. My goals are probably different from your goals. My reasons for doing this are different. And my ability or talent is probably different (and much less) than yours. Nevertheless, I can learn something from anybody.

3) Social: One of the reasons why I enjoy this sport is due to the many great people I have met along the way. It really gets old swimming, biking, and running by myself all the time. Currently, I spend about 12-15 hours per week training for my first IM. (Many train more, some train less. This is just where I am at the moment.) It helps a great deal to have someone or a group of people to train with or talk to about training. And I really enjoy going to the parties or traveling to a race with other people. It helps immensely to have a network of people to train with, talk with, and party with from time to time. I hope to expand my network of tri connections around the country.

4) Spiritual: One might ask, "How in the world does triathlon have anything to do with growing spiritually?" Good question. Hard to explain, but there are times when I am training or racing when a verse will come to mind that perfectly fits what I need at that moment in time. For example, when I was racing at the Disney Olympic Triathlon in Sept '06, I was having one of my best races ever! I was flying on the bike with relative ease. I was averaging 19+ mph, which is fast for this old boy. Instead of getting passed by everything on the road as usual, I was passing many, many people. All of a sudden, a verse came to mind from Isaiah 40, which goes something like this" "And they will mount up on wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary. They will walk and not grow tired." Man, I literally felt like angels were lifting me off the ground and propelling me forward faster than ever! I just let my legs go, quit worrying about time and distance and felt the rush that came along with it! It was literally one of the highlights of my life! I finished the race in the top 50% of all participants, which was a first for me and my highest finish ever! At that time, I was ALWAYS in the bottom 25%, or bottom 10%. Another time, I started running when it was light, but then it grew dark quickly. For the most part, there were some street lights on my course. But there was one patch of trail where there was no light at all. I literally could not see my hand in front of my face, let alone the trail where I was running. I kept running, mainly on memory, hoping I would not twist an ankle or something. Right as the path began to turn, and I could not see where, a car drove by and cast just enough light on my trail so that I could see the turn and the incline approaching. I remembered the verse, "Your word is a lamp unto my feet, a light unto my path." Perfect timing!

5) Emotional: This is a tough one. For a guy that for years did not care one twit about another's feelings, I find that my emotions run the gamut during training and races. Within the same race, I have gone from feeling the highest highs to feeling the lowest lows, all within a matter of a couple of hours. The highs are so high that I feel like I'm literally going to burst right there on my bike! The lows feel like I want to crawl under a bush and die. There is a quote from the late Gen. George Patton that says: "Fatigue makes cowards of us all." So true! The more fatigued I get, usually on a long bike or run, the more my thoughts can become so negative about stuff that I couldn't even repeat them here. Finally, I'm beginning to learn how to manage those negative thoughts and turn them into something more positive. If I can learn to do that when I am in a time of great fatigue, then that will help me during everyday life as well. When are we usually short or curt with someone? Do we do this when everything is going well? No. We usually do this when we have had a bad day or are real tired. Well, try biking 60-80 miles in the hot, humid MS weather. Then take a bad circumstance and purpose to have a positive response. That is a positive change!

In order to grow in these 5 areas, it seems that we have to stretch ourselves and experience something outside of our normal routines and comfort zones. Triathlon does that for me. It makes me do things I never thought possible. It has already helped me overcome so many mental hurdles that I could not list them all. It doesn't just "happen." We have to MAKE it happen.

Hopefully, it will help me grow, develop, and learn to balance the physical, mental, spiritual, social, and emotional sides of me in a manner that is pleasing and honoring to God and has a positive impact on the world around me.

At the end of our lives, we only leave one thing behind, which is the impact we had on other people. All our possessions will be spent or lost by our heirs. Our names will be shortly forgotten. (If don't believe me, then try to name all of your great grandparents. If you can, then name your great, great grandparents on both sides. Keep going until you can not name them all straight from your memory without calling someone or looking them up in a family tree.) So hopefully, I can begin to have a more positive impact or effect on those around me, whether family, friends, or even strangers.